New Relic is a SaaS company that claims to be building a new software category called "Software Analytics." To me, it's another big data company since the company describes its software as enabling "organizations to collect, store and analyze massive amounts of software data in real time." To be honest, if I buy the stock it's only because I think they will be bought out since they are expected to go public with around a $1B valuation. On the flip-side, one could have used the same thesis with DATA and they have not been acquired yet (price action has worked out though!).

I'm hoping this company flies under the radar enough to make it worth purchasing on IPO day, but I'm not so sure it's going to happen now that the IPO range has been raised from $18-20 to $20-22 (and could be raised again). I guess I'm not really that surprised though considering every IPO mentioning SaaS or cybersecurity has been underpriced and then raised since the Facebook IPO debacle a few years back.

Haven't decided if I will pull the trigger yet, but I will definitely be watching NEWR on 12/12!

One of my favorite features from GOOG is the Google Trends functionality. It allows you to search any terms you want and graphs the search terms by relative popularity vs. all Google searches. Despite more competition from NKE, Gap's Athleta, UA and others, Lululemon Athletica continues to be remain popular despite many analysts saying the brand is falling apart. See the chart below for evidence. Hopefully this increase in popularity the last few months will help revenue growth in the quarter being reported on December 11 and in future quarters to come!

I was featured on the most recent Estimize pre-earnings call where we discussed consumer technology companies. Check it out here. We discussed Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, GoPro, Priceline, and Zillow.

For the last several weeks (and to be honest months) there's been tons of talk on the strengthening US Dollar. Among other market forces, the Dollar has been strengthening as the US is coming close to the end of QE (whatever number it is now) while many other major economies are easing. Some like Europe sound like they are just getting started when it comes to monetary easing too! I was curious to see if there was any correlation between a strengthening USD and performance of the S&P 500. Monthly returns were used with several different time periods in mind. That's why you see multiple correlations. Explanations behind the dates chosen are as follows: Dollar and Trade Weighted Dollar data I found went back to January 1995, so I did one test since inception, if you will. March '09 was when the market bottomed after the financial crisis, so the second is since the current bull market began. Lastly, May 2013 was when then Fed Chair Ben Bernanke first said "tapering." Given the weights in the DXY, I chose to specifically look at the correlations between the Trade Weighted Dollar and the S&P 500. Additionally, all correlations are statistically significant at a 5% level of significance. Check out the pictures below for plots of monthly S&P 500 returns with inverted monthly returns of the Trade Weighted Dollar.

As you can see there are statically significant negative correlations between monthly returns on the trade weighted dollar and the S&P 500 during all time periods. It's also interesting to see the recent divergence in August (last chart provides best view). Will this divergence continue? Or will the gap be closed? I'm pretty bullish on the USD at the moment given relative economic strength here. However, could too much Dollar strength eat into the profits of domestic companies that operate internationally, causing slower earnings growth? Remember, when the Dollar strengthens domestic exports become less competitive overseas. Since I think the US is still a good place to invest (I know, I know...tons of international markets have lower valuations, which should make them more attractive), I would recommend focusing on purely domestic stocks vs. multinationals.

Going to run some regressions next to see if I come to the same conclusions, but I wanted to get my initial thoughts down on paper...more to come later, but for now caveat emptor when it comes to investing in multinational companies!!!!

Check out this short report on Rouse Properties (RSE) that I recently submitted to the current SumZero research contest. My thesis is predicated on the belief that malls will become less relevant over time as e-commerce becomes a bigger chunk of overall retail sales. This will impact the ability of the company and other REITs to continuously raise lease rates.

Attached is a report I wrote on Support.com (SPRT) earlier in the summer (6/11/14). The stock is down about 5.26% since this report was published, but my long thesis still holds. I will be updating this report and others in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Just posting some of my past research as I get this website up and running. Keep in mind some of the historical stuff may not be research reports per se, but will still be discussing stocks. In the future I am going to try to be consistent and use this section for research reports that I write.

Check out this Estimize analyst call from July 2014, which discusses some popular consumer internet stocks. Keep in mind that I no longer work for Broadleaf Partners.